Kay Starr (no relation to Ringo—he was a Starkey and she was a Starks) was, according to Internet, born in Oklahoma, part Native American, and used to serenade the family’s chickens in their coops, which led to recording some 200 plus records, mostly in the Fifties and Sixties, but spanning half a century. I was familiar with her, have a song here and there on cassette, but I never heard these two songs on this 1958 single, which was in my box of random 45s. It’s in that category of early rock’n’roll, I guess, when pop orchestras were trying to cash in—at least that’s my impression—with shrill horns (“Rockin’ Chair”) and kind of bizarre electric guitar (“Stroll Me”) and hip lyrics about the radio, dancing, the sock hop, etc. “Rockin’ Chair” is about “Gramps” not being a square, diggin’ the new music, and is hopelessly corny. Though there could be hidden meaning—I mean, there has to be right? But I can’t listen again. “Stroll Me” is more interesting because of the guitar, and the weird way it sounds like someone keeps manually slowing down the record. Also, it’s supposedly about a dance, but everyone knows it’s about fucking. In a way, I can’t figure out if I’d rather hear people use these really obvious metaphors or just come out and say it straight—I guess there’s good and bad either way, right? The other interesting thing is that the orchestra is Hugo Winterhalter’s, who was probably quite prominent, but who I’ve never made a note of until now. I love that name, Winterhalter—I’ve never heard that one before—and I bet it’s especially poignant to people on a day like this when the temperature is going to drop 30 degrees and the wind is going to make everyone act like they’re back in the days of hopelessly insufficient overcoats.